“I cut it.”
“I see that. It’s brown.” He sounded as though I’d had a sex change.
I smiled. But if it were possible, if it would have made me feel normal again, I would’ve reached up and unzipped, peeled this skin off me like a wetsuit. My old self would’ve grabbed hold of Frank and ripped his fly open.
He touched my hair, then took my hands and stood back from me as if making sure everything else was where he’d left it, pulled me to him and hugged me. Our bones didn’t seem to fit together anymore and when he kissed the side of my head I couldn’t tell if he said “I miss you” or “I missed you.”
All the same anyway. I missed me too. I thought of my mother jumping on a bed in Vegas, forcing herself to say ha ha until glee crept in and the laughter was real. Frank said something about my hair and how it would take him a while to get used to. I think he said he wished I had told him, as he took my hand and led me down my hallway. My mother kept jumping on the bed until I remembered I’d made the whole thing up. Maybe I’m made up right now, I thought. Maybe my brain is in a jar somewhere getting poked with a stick.
“We’re all set up,” Frank told me, squeezing my hand. “We’re on Brian’s network now.” He sat at my desk. Onscreen was an instant message that read, “Wish I could see U. If U send another picture, I’ll send a present. One that takes batteries!”
“What is that?”
“This is Papi Chulo. He thinks I’ve got long blonde hair and that I shaved my pussy yesterday while I was talking to him.”
I blinked. “Can’t he see you with the camera?”
“No, I told him I’m new to this and my camera isn’t working yet. He’s only seen a still shot of you.” He giggled to himself and clicked to show me a photo he’d taken of me a couple months back wearing black lace lingerie and a Lone Ranger mask that he bought me for Valentine’s. He looked up now, as if he needed desperately for me to say he did good. He typed, “U are bad!!:)”
“How girlish of you,” I said. “How did you two hook up?”
“It’s part of Brian’s network: jerkflirt.com,” he said, gaining momentum. “What we have to work on is conversion and retention—we’ve got to convert guys who are surfing the Net into members on our site and then retain them as members. There’s different ways to do it. Once the webcam is turned on, you can talk to thirty guys at a time and that’s free for them, but if they want to see you naked then you go into a private chat room and they pay six bucks a minute.” His fingers jabbed at the keyboard. A second stream came up, this guy’s name was Naughty_Boy. “Even without making videos,” he said, “just instant messaging and doing private shows in here, we should make a minimum two grand U.S. a week. But I can’t turn the camera on yet, for obvious reasons.” He spoke rapid-fire, as if he was on something.
“What does he mean,” I asked, “see another picture of you?”
“I e-mailed him that Polaroid of you in your red G-string. And he sent us a cashmere sweater.”
“This is—Frank, you’re moving too fast. You just sent this guy a picture of me with no mask or anything. One of my private pictures? Fuck.”
“Don’t freak out. He’s in Salt Lake City. Probably a Mormon.” He clicked on Margo in the list of available models. A blonde girl in a black-and-white checked bra and G-string suddenly appeared onscreen, a stack of sex toys beside her and a keyboard in her lap. The video stream was slow and shuddering like homemade animation, ten or fifteen frames per second. “See, once we get you in front of the webcam, this is how it should work.” A long stack of instant messages from names like Slaveboy and FatMike jammed the screen, the old ones disappearing as new ones jackhammered in. FatMike wanted her to rip her stockings for him. The stockings cost her twenty bucks, she said, and she wouldn’t rip them for less than a fifteen-minute private. In private, she said, she would show him whatever he wanted. Slaveboy wanted her to speak to him on the mike. She would only do audio in private and she could only be dirty in private. There were censors watching.
“I mailed Slaveboy a pair of your dirty panties for fifty bucks,” Frank blurted as he typed.
“Ew. Really?” I looked down the hall toward my laundry bag.
“What? What’s the big deal, I can buy you ten new pairs for that.”
“How do you even know he’ll send the money?”
“It’s already sent. It goes through a third-party processor into our account. Once these guys see you live, your panties’ll be goin’ for a lot more. ’Specially dirty ones.” He stopped typing and looked up at me, a bit breathless. “You wanna turn on the camera and do some?” He licked his bottom lip as if he were next up for a line of coke.
“Can’t you … I just got home. Don’t you …”
Bewildered, he looked at the screen. “I thought you’d be excited. I set it all up myself.”
I sat down on the couch. “It’s great. You did great.” My voice was flat. I remembered an essay I’d read in an issue of Penthouse I bought for Frank once. It was written by a former madam and addressed a female reader. The way to keep our men happy, she said, was to make a fuss over them. Tell your man how impressed you are with his accomplishments. Men like to feel as though they are smart and capable, and pleasing them means reinforcing that. “Do you ever get sick of hearing how pretty you are?” she asked. “Well, he never gets sick of hearing how competent and clever he is.” I dangled that in front of my mother once. She quoted Margaret Mitchell. “I’m tired of saying, ‘How wonderful you are,’ to fool men who haven’t got half the sense I’ve got, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know anything so men can tell me things and feel important while they’re doing it.”
It would be worse if he left. Worse if I were alone inside and out. “I could never have figured that stuff out by myself. It looks complicated.” I tried to put a rise in my tone.
“Took some doing.” Frank typed a few last words, closed the connection and came and sat by me on the couch. “I don’t like it when you’re gone,” he said and picked up my hand. “We get all clumsy. We forget how to take care of each other.”
I grabbed hold of him around the neck. “Hug me,” I told him. “As hard as you can.” I couldn’t feel it. With one arm round my shoulders, he used the other to scoop my legs before he stood and carried me off to the bedroom. Once he’d laid me down on the bed, he went to the dresser and lit the candle. He’d never done that before. He touched the motorcycle helmet that had been collecting dust since his bike broke down two years ago. When we were first dating we’d drive out to the country on that bike. Roaring down Highway One was the best foreplay I’d ever experienced.
When I woke, there was a note saying he’d be back in a couple hours.
I went out in the hall and rooted for the notebook. My mother sitting alone in a Scarsdale train station. She would be in the carnival soon. Marines would try to rape her. Okie Joe. I looked up from my bed into the dresser mirror. It reflected back to the mirror above my headboard, the picture in the picture in the picture: her in the train station, me at the airport. I can see her anger and tears and mine and her mother’s and all of us with our fists clenched.
When I landed in Tokyo on my way to modeldom, the agency had no bed ready for me. The girl I was replacing wouldn’t be leaving until the following afternoon. I was given the choice of sleeping on the pullout couch at the office or staying at the agent’s place. I was scared of her looking at me, constantly appraising me, and I chose the couch. The agency was actually an apartment where four models lived on the off-hours. When I woke the first morning, a raggedy-looking girl was at the foot of my pullout, jamming clothes into a knapsack. “Hi,” she said, glancing up irritably. “Don’t mind me. I’m just getting the hell out of here. Did Miko try to get you to stay at her place last night?” I said she had but that I’d wanted to be with the other models. She chuckled derisively. “Smart move. If you’d slept there you would’ve woken up with her hands down your pants like the last girl did. Fuckin’ dyke.” I was
used to other descriptors for lesbians, adjectives that suggested dyke-as-saviour not rapist. She looked around herself then zipped her bag with a rip as though she were gutting a deer. “And whatever you do, don’t let them touch your hair. I used to have hair like yours, now look at it: perms and layers and … fucked.” She had rock-and-roll hair, nothing like the coifs of fashion magazines.
Once she left, I wandered the apartment. The two bedroom doors were closed. The other models were sleeping behind them in bunk beds. It was only 7:00 a.m. Saturday. There were white notes stuck to the walls in various places, warning us not to touch this or that appliance or face a fine of two thousand U.S. A sheet of rules and regulations had been left for me outlining the fines I would be subjected to were I to break said rules. I was already in debt for my first month’s rent, my plane ticket, my composite card and I was expected to work until such time as the debt was paid. Were I to leave town, or change my appearance, change agencies, appear late for a booking, not show for a booking, behave poorly, dress poorly, steal, swear, take drugs, or anything else I’d been doing ad nauseam since my first period, I would be fined. A slam of bleakness hit me.
I would stay there and wear their clothes and model their beer and do whatever it took but I’d die before I’d go home with my tail between my legs. It took me three months in the end to pay off my debt, pay my rent and fly myself home. I kept sane by way of Leonard; writing him long letters, calling when I thought I could pay for five minutes and still manage to eat. I’d rant and rave by pen or telephone, say things like, “If I don’t get out of this shit-hole soon I’ll slash my wrists. They’ve got cockroaches the size of cats (I threw a giant Italian Vogue at one last night and the Vogue bounced. I swear to Christ!), when you walk down the sidewalk, big-assed rats run back and forth in front of you from the stinking garbage to the restaurants and every five seconds the slant-eyed bastards are trying to get me to drop my gear for everything from screwdrivers to smoked-eel ads. What the fuck is that? Hello? Where’s my Elle cover? … And if you ever breathe a goddamn word about any of this to my monster, I’ll shish kebab your balls!”
I imagined Audrey now in the train station. I’d given her a friend in Little Italy. Someone who’d know how to get her a job so she wouldn’t have to go home. I wanted her to have a girlfriend so I wouldn’t feel lonely.
Dumping my tote bag on the bed, I spread out the books and opened Pack of Rats to a bit about the opening for Ocean’s Eleven. Maybe Sinatra invited her. Maybe she was there at the Fremont Theatre. And then what? Where was Johnny? I cracked The Chic Mafioso. Judy Campbell stayed at his pad in L.A. when she was in town. Mother probably did too. Rosselli orchestrating murders on one page, and on the next having boys over from the Catholic orphanage to swim in his pool. He had been a movie producer once. He lunched at the Brown Derby. There was a picture of the big-brown-hat-of-a-restaurant in a couple of the books. I can see my mother in there. Her, Johnny and Annie gabbing and stuffing their faces. The Derby was right across the street from the Ambassador Hotel and its nightclub, the Coconut Grove. She must have been salivating to get on that stage. Johnny could’ve got her a job singing in the lounge at the Ambassador. At the Cal-Neva. Meanwhile he was working out details to off Castro. JFK won the election that year and he made his brother Attorney General. Then Bobby went right after the men said to have put his brother in office. It’s all true. It’s all false. One book says a guy’s a deity, another says he’s a demon. It struck me that biographies said more about the biographer than the subject.
Just like when Katie, his idiot ex, said I had a Marilyn Monroe dye job. After that creepy night with Marilyn and creepy Old Man Kennedy at the Cal-Neva, I don’t want anyone comparing me to that fried-up mess ever again. Have you seen her around? Promise me if I ever get like her you’ll shoot me. I’ll shoot you too. Deal?
Celia’s been staying at Johnny’s place in L.A. the past few weeks. Thanks to him she’s got an agent now, Marty Sugar. Sugar’s got her booked for a week singing in the lounge at the Cal-Neva Lodge. Sinatra’s there too, in the midst of buying a piece of the place named for the fact that it straddles the California/Nevada border. Sitting pretty on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, the Cal-Neva is elegant but rustic with a real log exterior, stone vestibules and floors, a monstrous A-frame lobby with a stone fireplace and thick wooden beams. There are guest rooms in the main building and chalets for the fat cats and celebrities out back. The fun is its duality—the state border runs through the enormous fireplace and the king-size outdoor swimming pool: gambling on the Nevadan side, hotel and entertainment on the Californian. “You can violate the Mann Act without even going outside,” Sugar joked as he gave her the booking details. Celia wasn’t amused.
Her second night at the Lodge, Frank invites her for dinner. Annie is supposed to join them but she hasn’t shown. For now it’s just Celia, Frank, Dean, Sam Giancana, Joe Kennedy Sr., and Marilyn.
Celia sits between Marilyn and Dean. This is the first she’s seen of him since Miami and she’s squirmy with the memory. Frank orders wine and gossips with Giancana while Monroe directs her conversation to the Kennedy patriarch.
Dean acts as though Miami never happened. “Well, don’t you look like a million, sweetheart. I betchu sound like one too. I’m gonna get me in that there lounge to prove it.”
She smiles. “Frank says you fellas are all buying into this place.”
“A boy’s gotta keep up with his investments or all he’ll have left is his charm.”
Marilyn giggles and leans into Old Man Kennedy. “I thought you said that boy of yours would be here tonight. He was going to explain to me the relationship between a commander-in-chief and a legislative body.”
Kennedy’s gruff voice butters over. “If he doesn’t show up, my dear, I’ve got a few legislative suggestions for you.”
Marilyn gives his arm a light swat.
“I taught those boys everything they know.”
“Really? What about …” and she whispers in his ear. Old Joe roars. Marilyn titters and gulps her martini.
Celia catches a glimpse of his hand on Marilyn’s thigh and leans to Dean. “Is it true about Marlene Dietrich and him?”
“Now y’see why she switched to girls.”
“What’s doin’ over there?” Giancana growls across the table. “You guys got the beautiful broads and I’m stuck over here with this skinny shit.” He elbows Frank in the ribs.
Dean chuckles. “Give old Sam a kiss now, Frank. And don’t skimp on the tongue.”
Giancana cackles, and gives Frank another jab as Dean continues. “Now, you girls probably don’t know this but see that nice sapphire pinky ring on Sam. That’s an engraved promise ring from Frank. Those two fellas been going steady for what, three, four years now?”
Sam laughs so hard he nearly swallows his cigar, coughs and pats his jacket for a lighter. Leaning over the table toward them, Monroe oozes a breathy “I don’t know what you heard, Dean, but these boys are all man.”
Celia’s eyeballs roll, wondering if Dean’s had his wrinkly bits against her too. “Frank? You heard anything from Annie? She said she’d be here yesterday.”
He snorts. “You broads … one day you can’t stand her, the next you’re cryin’ at her door.” He looks to Dean. “Charlie, where’s Sam at?”
Giancana makes kissy lips.
“Not you, y’crazy bastard. Sammy’s comin’ up in from L.A. still, isn’t he?”
Giancana rolls ash off his cigar into the tray. “Burns my ass, sharin’ a name with that fuckin’ nigger weasel.”
Dean shrugs. “I thought he was driving up this afternoon.”
“Mr. Gi—Flood.” Celia does her best to keep a pleasant even voice. “I really wish you wouldn’t say that word.”
“Excuse me.” Giancana stuffs the cigar back in his mouth and barks around it. “—sharin’ a name with that darn nigger weasel.”
Frank tastes the wine. He nods and the waiter pours round the table. “Sam don’t
mean anything.” His voice is caramel-glazed. “He’s just shootin’ the bull. See, Sam, Celia over there is one very loyal girl. Some guy says something about one a’her pals—shoop!—right for the throat! And she’s got a lotta teeth.”
Giancana shoots her a smile. “Hey, how’d you feel about a little trip to Cuba? I gotta job for you.”
The table roars.
“Don’t tease.” Marilyn puts her cheek to Celia’s. “I like her. Did you hear her sing last night?” She takes Celia’s hand and clutches it to her heart. “She makes me cry.—You do, I caught some of your first set and when you sang ‘Comin’ Through The Rye’ … something in your voice …” Her eyes shine as if a flood might come through all that paint and wash her away.
Across the table, Giancana says, “Why don’tcha hold my hand like that, I’m cold.”
Monroe’s look doesn’t waver, it pleads and sends a flash of panic through Celia’s as though she’s just heard a missing child scream.
Frank’s voice barrels in. “If you girls are gonna keep that up, I’ll have to ask you to go to my room.”
Marilyn laughs and drops her hands, keeping one woven through Celia’s, resting them between the chairs. A sudden thought of her mother splashes across Celia’s mind. Sick, her cool hand clutching, cancer eating away at her grip. A spasm jolts her.
Marilyn clutches tighter. “Oops, was that me or you?”
“Excuse me, I just felt dizzy a second. Probably just need to eat something.”
“Hello, kittens!” Annie. A mink stole wrapped around her beaded dress, she looks like hedonism personified. She comes up behind Celia’s chair, kisses her cheek.
“You were ’sposed to be here yesterday.”
“I couldn’t get on the plane—there was a bomb threat! Didn’t I call you? It was just—I’ll tell you later. Swear to god, there’s a damn bomb threat every other day lately.”
Dean stands. “Here, lovely, let me rescue you from the threats and accusations of a cruel world.” He embraces her. “Ahhh … Annie West, the place I want to be buried.”
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